New York's City Council will hold hearings on the city's response to Hurricane Sandy.Associated Press Photo

STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. - New York City lawmakers are scrutinizing how the city's evacuation plan, emergency response efforts and disaster planning performed during Hurricane Sandy.

The City Council has scheduled its first of several hearings on the storm for Wednesday. City emergency managers and health and fire officials have been invited to testify.

Councilman James Oddo (R-Mid-Island/Brooklyn), who serves as the Council's minority leader, said he has four main questions for the city officials who will be present -- the first being "What happened to the 911 system?"

"I understand that it was overwhelmed," he said. "But thank God for Facebook. Facebook was 311 and 911 rolled into one."

Oddo said he knows for a fact that he and Councilman Vincent Ignizio (R-South Shore) got help to people through Facebook, when consitutents posted their addresses on the Councilmen's Facebook pages and the councilmen reached out to city officials directly to dispatch help. Those people couldn't get through to 911.

"That vaunted system that we spent a lot of money upgrading, it failed again, rather miserably," Oddo said.

He also wants the city to explain "in some detail how extensive their evacuation planning was" in the lead-up to Hurricane Sandy.

"I've heard reports where some folks compare Sandy to Irene, and the efforts paint two different pictures," Oddo said.

He'll also ask about the city's system of tagging houses red, yellow and green in assessing their damage.

"Nine, 10 weeks later, looking back at things, I think one of the most troublesome aspects of this was the red, yellow, green sticker system -- which I think has been proven to be quite arbitrary," he said.

Oddo wants to know who was responsible for assessing the houses -- and doesn't want them in charge of any assessments necessary for potential voluntary acquisition programs.

He'll also hope to broach the topic of Fire Department staffing in the borough -- noting that Mayor Michael Bloomberg touted putting extra firefighters on Staten Island before Sandy, anticipating the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge might be closed.

"That was all the evidence we ever need in our battle against any effort to close engine companies or any firehouse on Staten Island," Oddo said. "That, to me, was a very telling gesture. It says that every so often, Staten Island needs to bring in help from Brooklyn."

Other Sandy-related sessions are scheduled this month and next. They'll be devoted to utilities and public housing, among other topics.

Ignizio said he has some questions about communication issues in the wake of the storm, when cell phones in the borough weren't working.

"When the communication systems went out, that led to more panic, and it made the recovery efforts that much more difficult," he said. 

SOME PROPOSALS 

The Council is weighing proposals, including the feasibility of burying more power lines. Another idea is requiring boilers and other crucial equipment to be set higher off the ground in flood-zone buildings.

Ignizio said utilities are a main concern of his.

"The electricity situation, the fact that all of the Island was out, it speaks to a larger issue which my colleagues and I want to bring up," he said. "We should begin the lengthy and expensive process of putting our borough's electricity lines and feeders underground."

Not all the hearings will focus on negative issues, Ignizio said -- there were many agencies that performed well, including the "unsung heroes" of the Department of Sanitation.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg also has unveiled plans for improving the city's preparedness for storms.